Beautiful Guilty Pleasures. Ah. Chocolate.

So during our Toronto trip we were walking around kensington market in the morning to see what cool stuff (especially food) there was. Note.. do not go early in the morning because many places weren’t even open yet.

We walked around and found a shady looking TD atm machine place. This space could only really fit one person. It was perfect, because I really needed to withdraw some money out. AND BOY AM I GLAD I DID.

BECAUSE. Low and behold do you know what we stumbled upon?! CXBO (Chocolates x Brandon Olsen). I heard of them first through instagram a while back and I saw they made these beautiful disco eggs. You’ll see as you scroll down how beautifully-made the chocolates are. Truly, little tiny works of art in each one!

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CXBO is owned by chef and chocolatier, Brandon Olsen, and artist Sarah Keenlyside! I would love to be able to see the process in how they make these one day!

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So… I kind of waited around a week or so for our girl’s night to eat the chocolates. Clearly truffles don’t last very long (it started crumbling). But it was very soft and it’s still bit more on the sweeter side for me but creamy and yummy!

I’m sad I forgot to bring my camera to take these, but thanks Nana for letting me use your camera!

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This is just beautiful! And arguably one of the most expensive chocolate I ever bought for the quantity I was getting (around $3-4 a piece?). But it’s about quality (amirite??). Though, I’m not a chocolate expert or anything so this is just based on pure personal preference (well all 4 of us tried it and we pretty much had similar, if not the same, kind of conclusion.

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First of all I must point out it comes in the cutest box. I wonder if they hand make each printed design on it?

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From this list, can you already tell which ones would be a hit or miss for you?

From this I was really interested in the:

  1. Raspberry, rose, fennel
  2. Yuzu, sake
  3. orange blossom, honey
  4. pistachio, orange, bergamot

Though I think we were all interested in the same ones. Thank you to Nancy though because she particularly likes salted caramel, so that helped in the choosing of who eats which one (that’s the biggest dilemma). Though we kinda tried to split LOL.

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I can’t even remember who tried which. But Lisa, Kelly, Nana and I think the orange blossom was the best one. It’s like biting into flowers!!! Okay, let me redo that. It didn’t sound as appetizing. Um… it’s just such a light and fragrant scent, I’m not too sure how to describe it. A light floral sweetness? I think that sounds better.

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The yuzu one was kind of disappointing. We were hoping for something more citrusy like the yuzu itself.

I always wondered what kind of palate you’d need to distinguish the “better” chocolate from the “okay”?

It’s a very special and meaningful day/evening/night for me and I was really glad to have these girls meet each other as they are my absolute favourites ❤

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My fashionable ladies~ Even on a chill day haha. Oh and yes it was kind of chilly that day too.

Do you know where we’re walking to.. CAN YOU GUESS?!

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I clearly didn’t get the memo haha.

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You’ve probably guessed it by now. We went to explore the Edmonton “beach!”

 

Making meaningful memories~

Love-Mish

 

The Charcoal Ice Cream Cone: iHalo Krunch

Nana and I went to a trip to Toronto and one of the must-go places on our list was iHaloKrunch. While we admit it may be a bit overhyped, we still think it was definitely worth the trip there!

iHaloKrunch makes their waffle cones in-store, so it smells amazing when you walk in. The special part is that the waffle cones are BLACK. The secret ingredient? Activated charcoal.

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We think we lined up for almost 45 minutes? It wasn’t too bad. The store is actually really small, and can only fit around 12 people at a time, and therefore the line-up spilt all the way outside. We thought it was really nice that they put out signs to let their customers know not to block the entrances of the other stores next to them (not the one shown above).

While we were bored, we entertained ourselves with the cute pug sitting on the bench!

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WE FINALLY MADE IT IN! See what I mean by how small it is??

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They have other ice cream and sorbet options too. Though the flavours were quite standard and we came to Toronto to try more adventurous stuff hehe. E.g. They had mint chocolate chip, strawberry, chocolate etc. (Looked really yummy though).

While standing in line I had the hardest time deciding what flavour to get (I wanted to try everythinggggg). We were debating: matcha with charcoal, ube (taro) with charcoal, matcha with vanilla? Luckily more and more people left the shop with this 3 flavour combo which we couldn’t resist getting ourselves. Ube, charcoal and matcha!

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Now, the matcha isn’t really the usual matcha that has its depth and bit of bitterness to it. It’s more of a sweet green tea flavour. As for the ube (taro), it reminds me of the artificial taro powder used in bubble teas. Though that’s understandable as it’s really hard to get that nice purple along with a strong taste from the taro alone. As for the charcoal flavour… hm can’t quite put a finger on it to describe the taste! Like.. roasted black sesame? But it’s not as fragrant. They did infuse some coconut flavour in it though!

Our favourite part of the soft serve has to be the cone. It is very addicting! We love how the cones are made in-store. However the soft serve melted REALLY fast and although they did try to put in some marshmallow fluff at the bottom of the cone, the ice cream still dripped through :'(. We had to devour the ice cream as fast as possible at a nearby park across the street!!

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Anyways, if you’re in Toronto, this is a must-try! Yummy yummy in my tummy. Though don’t be like us in trying to take a minute to snap some photos of it as it melts extremely fast!

-Love

MishNa

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Day 2 Harmony of the Seas Cruise Trip

Day 2 we decided to try out the breakfast in bed. We were really tired and all I can remember is Nancy answering a call and moments later opening the door… some guy walked in. I think I looked around. Half confused… And then Nancy mumbled something and turned off the lights and we went back to bed. :’D

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The strawberries weren’t sweet… neither was the watermelon. We had a theory that they saved the sweetest fruit for the VIPs haha. Oh! And they had lactose-free milk option for Nancy which is absolutely awesome!

PSSSST. We actually went to the gym on this day! Even ran on the track that is half inside the deck and outside! It was so nicee.

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LUNCH at the Solarium❗ This was a buffet place, but did I do a good job in presentation? 😀 Just kidding… not really hehe.

My favourite from this plate was…the fish (you must get the lemon slice, makes it taste much better) and the curry!
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This was my second plate (I won’t show you the other plates… things got a bit messy after that :p). After being on the ship and eating unhealthily I really appreciate being able to have fruits and vegetables everyday!

Next stop was taking pictures at Central park! It had beautiful flowers, Shrek walking around, and lovely live guitar playing in the background. Notice how I was still kind of pale… be prepared for the next days… I tan so easily.

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We finally waited till our reservation time at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant! We’ve been watching and reading about Jamie Oliver and was so excited to try this out.

It was a tight fit inside and the place soon quickly filled up.

Here’s the menu for you (actually for me to remember what I ate). Once again we learnt we could order as much as we like… ain’t no stopping us now.

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They started us off with this bread platter with your usual balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing on the side.

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Next came the cured meat platter. Perfect for sharing (a little too much for us).  Our favourites were the prosciutto & schiacciata piccante.

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Sorry for the quality of the photos. I didn’t have my camera yet!

The caper berry provides a piquant flavour that really helped us get through that meat platter.

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Nancy’s prosciutto and melon is by far my favourite out of the appetizers everyone got. (Or maybe I had too much meat and cheeses that my taste buds needed something sweet). Though a definite recommend, it’s a nice light appetizer to start off.

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Justin got the tomato and ricotta bruschetta. He said this tasted really good. I’m sorry I’m not much help since I’m not a big fan of raw tomatoes. I know. Heartbreaking. Sorry :(. Though I love everything else that uses tomatoes!

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I got the crispy squid! I’m not sure why I love chewing on tentacles hmm but this was really good. The mayo had some paprika, though I felt the paprika was used more of a decorative reasoning than for flavour.

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Mmmm yummy. I’m actually really lucky that my friends are always the best and save the tentacles for me :3

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Nancy got the truffle tagliatelle (see a trend here? haha). The black truffle produces such a deep flavour. However, with the cream and all the meat and cheese and deep-fried food we had, it really made it hard to fully enjoy and finish this dish. (Yeah yeah we should’ve ordered less is what you’re probably thinking right? :p) Plus the noodles seemed unevenly cooked or perhaps cooled so that certain edges were tough.

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I think Brenton ordered this. Can’t remember how he enjoyed this but I shall update later!

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I got the dry-aged rib eye steak. Bit uneven cooking when cut into but still tender (obviously). For those who haven’t tried dry-aged beef, essentially the collagen is broken down and you’re left with a tender piece of meat. The taste is like a blend of gamey and beefiness (is that even a word?!).

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Look at the juices! Oh boy.

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Justin ordered the risotto caprese. This was by far the most disappointing dish. It didn’t live up to its “cream[iness]”. The rice was hard and just ruined the dish.

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Luckily Justin’s lam chops scottadita made up for it. This is the second best lamb chops I’ve ever tasted! I’m not a big fan of lamb due to the gamey taste but there was none to be found! I can’t imagine the effort they went into making this.

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This was our first time trying polenta and it was so salty. Unbelievably salty.

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This was also so salty and oily that I needed to cradle it in my hands to take a picture. We think this was broccolini (mix between broccoli and gai lan).

And that puts an end…. wait, we forgot about dessert. Crap.

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While on the ship you’ll have these photographers that will come around to take your pictures. This guy was especially enthusiastic (in taking Nancy’s picture huehue).

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The “Can we eat yet Michelle” look.

 

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This was a super rich brownie.

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I have no words for dessert because it was a blur due to how full we all were. All I can remember is trying to pawn off which pieces we would eat to try to put a dent in it. When the server told us he had a surprise for us, we certainly didn’t imagine this!

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After such a big meal we needed to walk it off. here’s a view from the top! The Jamie Oliver restaurant is the glowing red sign at the bottom left corner.

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We booked a show to end off the night! The aqua theatre!

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The guy tricked us into thinking he was going to jump into the water from that height :(.

All I can think about was feeling really full and falling asleep to a movie at night….

Stay tuned weeeee.

 

-Love Mish.